cambridge connect - Miami Lakes Educational Center

CLASS OF 2016
Congratulations to the Class of 2016 for
surviving four years in the Cambridge Academy!
The Newsletter
of the Cambridge
Academy Alumni
Association
CAMBRIDGE CONNECT
MIXING
ENGINEERING
AND DANCE
L
Flavia Cuervo and the Pope
THE BLESSED SELFIE WITH THE POPE
F
lavia traveled to Rome with a group of 30
Harvard students to run the second-largest
Model United Nations Conferences in the
world; more than 3000 students and advisers
were in attendance. The conference itself was
already something to be proud of: one year of
planning and stressful nights had produced
this smooth-running machine.
But, in addition to bringing together
students from across the globe, she worked to
arrange an audience with Pope Francis.
This semester Flavia also took
the helm of The Harvard Political Review,
becoming its publisher.
As if all that were not enough,
Flavia was hired to work as a paid intern at
Facebook this summer with their Marketing
team. After her internship, she heads off to
Hyderabad, India for another Model UN
conference for high school students.
UNITING ARTS &
MEDICINE
S
Shixiu Wang
hixiu Wang, Class of 2013, is currently
participating in the Arts in medicine,
peace and community engagement program
in Belfast, Ireland.
uis
Alvarado, Class of 2012, is
currently finishing up his fourth year
at UCF with a major in mechanical
engineering with a focus on mechatronics
and a minor in mathematics. He says
that engineering concepts, and that
way of thinking, has correlated with his
dancing career in many ways that he
never thought possible. He says that it
definitely helps him create and approach
the art-form in a unique way. Luis has now been dancing
professionally for the past three years,
which has opened many doors for
traveling and experiencing different
cities/communities. The past year he
established himself as a traveling
choreographer in Florida and even had
the opportunity to represent the USA
a couple of years back at the biggest
international stage of hip-hop (similar
to the Olympics).
Luis also founded his own
startup and has received scholarships
through the university to keep this
venture going. He pitched his business
model to a university-wide competition
and was a semi-finalist for $75,000.
RESEARCHING THE RAPTORS
A
lfredo Gonzalez, Class of 2013,
participating in what is called an REU
(Research Experience for Undergraduates).
This is a highly selective and prestigious
program funded by the National Science
Foundation. They pay for airfare, housing,
and even provide participants with a
stipend. Alfredo is working in Boise State
University in Boise, Idaho and is focused
on raptors (eagles, hawks, owls, etc.). He is
tracking screech owl fledglings (when they
are able to fly and leave the nest) out in the
field and should be using GIS (Geographic
Information Systems) to map their
dispersal. After he completes his research,
he will attend science conferences where
he will present his research to scientists,
professors and students.
Cristy Andrea Altamirano
TAKING THE
THEATER STAGE
BY STORM
C
risty Andrea Altamirano, Class of 2011,
graduated from Dartmouth College in
June of 2015. After that, she went on a scenic
road-trip to Portland, Maine with her loving
mother and little brother where they had the
most delightful time.
She then spent the summer at
her alma mater, working with the Theater
Department to support their summer
programming. This included working as
a Production Coordinator for VoxFest, a
festival of Dartmouth Alumni theater, and
serving as a Stage Management Apprentice
for New York Theater Workshop (NYTW),
an illustrious theater whose focus is to bring
new theatrical work to the New York theater
scene.
Cristy then spent the Fall in
Chicago, IL working as a House Manager
for the Court Theater, a well-established
theater that sought to bring theater to the
diverse and lively audience of Chicago.
Currently, she is back in Miami
Lakes working on her next project: Directing
The Tempest by W. Shakespeare at the New
London Barn Playhouse (NLBP) where she
will be the first Latina to direct the Junior
Intern Acting Company. She is spending the
next few months editing the text, and will
then travel to New London to work on the
production for about three weeks in July.
PAGE 2
Alfredo Gonzalez
T
his summer Julissa Higgins, Class
of 2015, will be working at TIME
Magazine in Washington D.C. covering the
2016 Presidential election.
She will also be teaching a
journalism seminar to high school students
in Beijing as part of Harvard’s Summit for
Youth Leaders in China.
The ninth annual Harvard
AUSCR Summit for Young Leaders
in China (HSYLC 2015) will be held
simultaneously, in Beijing and Shanghai.
HSYLC 2015 will continue to
serve as an intense forum for cultural
and intellectual exchange and as an
opportunity to cultivate leadership skills
in talented Chinese high school students.
HSYLC aims to gather potential
Chinese leaders and give them an
environment in which they are challenged
in every way possible, through seminar
classes, team building missions, and
conversations with each other and Harvard
undergraduates.
The rich resources that HSYLC
is able to offer to Chinese high school
students expand their visions, deepen
their understanding and increase their
appreciation for their own culture.
CONQUERING
TIME & CHINA
Julissa Higgins
GOING AROUND
EUROPE
S
tefan Pirone, Class of 2013, is traveling
and exploring the world this summer.
He’s been to Manchester-Dublin-LondonOslo-Milan-Paris-Barcelona and now is
currently located in Madrid.
Stefan Pirone
DOMINATING THE MEDICIAL FIELD
A
Andrea Flores
FLYING HIGH IN
THE SKY
I
n Fall 2014, Andrea Flores (Class of
2013) attended the SHPE (Society
of
Hispanic
Professional
Engineers)
National Conference. A few days after the
conference ended, she received a call from
Delta Airlines. She was offered a position
to be a co-op in the interior engineering
department, cabin design.
She is a responsible for providing
support to cabin reconfigurations, passenger
and crew seating, emergency equipment,
livery (paint), monuments (galleries and
lavatories) and anything else in the interior
of an aircraft. The experience has been
amazing. She receives attraction discounts
in Atlanta, Georgia.
She has represented the company
a national recruiting events. She gets to
travel during her free time, allowing her to
fly over 80,000 miles in less than a year. The opportunities she has gotten
have been dependent on her ability to
express her passion, put in the work and
communicate with upper management.
Her experience with Delta has
her questioning her path as a mechanical
engineering student. If she does decide to
become an aerospace engineering student,
she’ll definitely consider Delta Airlines.
s a lab manager at Columbia University
Medical Center (CUMC), Alyssa Indart
gained perspective on the type of research
she hoped to pursue while in medical
school.
At
CUMC,
she
conducted
translational research with gastrointestinal
and neuropsychiatric diseases. She learned
about immune response activation and the
immune cells that were secreted over the
course of these diseases.
However, translational research
was only a small part of how she intended
to delve into the complexities of the
immune system.
She was recently offered a post
baccalaureate fellowship at the National
Institute of Health (NIH) for the following
two years where she will study the
mechanisms behind autoimmune diseases,
specifically how regulatory T-cells develop
and recognize what they believe to be
foreign substances in the body. Her aim
is to investigate genetic ways to silence
Alyssa Indart
certain pathways to find a creative way to
alter the increased T-cell production seen
in autoimmune diseases such as ones like
lupus and cancer.
She begins her fellowship in July
at the main NIH clinical center and hopes
to apply to an M.D./Ph.D program after her
fellowship.
If anyone is interested in
research or ways to maneuver through
the science field, you can contact Alyssa at
[email protected].
ANOTHER AWARD-WINNING BOOK
T
he 2016 yearbook, BLANK, marks
the fourth consective award-winning
yearbook for the journalism staff.
With
Editor-in-Chief,
Vivian
Bermudez, and Managing Editor, Maria
Vasquez steering the ship, the yearbook
was awarded Most Outstanding Theme
Development by Herff Jones.
It was also awarded for being a
Perfect Performer Meeting 2016 Yearbook
Deadlines.
The yearbook sold all of it’s 270
copies and is scheduled to be entered in
competitions next school year.
Vivian Bermudez & Maria Vasquez
PAGE 3
OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL
GO CLASS OF 2016!
KRISTIAN ASPI
RYAN BANOS
University of
Central Florida
VIVIAN BERMUDEZ
University of
Central Florida
Florida International
University Honors
University of
Central Florida
ARIF BIPU
STEPHANIE BRITO
LESSENITT CAMPOS
CHRIS CHAMORRO
ANA CRUZ
DIONISIO DE LA ROSA
MARISSA ECHEVERRIA
FAITHJOY GRANT
BRANDON HENAO
GABRIELLA INDART
Florida International
University
Florida International
University Honors
PAGE 4
University of
Florida
Florida International
University
Stanford University
Gates Scholar
Florida International
University
University of
Florida
New York
University
University of
Central Florida
JOANNA LUO
Franklin & Marshall College
Posse Scholar
NATHALIE MAIRENA
ELIZABETH MARTINEZ
ILAISAH MARTINEZ
ANA MIJARES
DILLON MIRANDA
MELISSA PEREZ
University of
Florida
Miami-Dade College
Honors
SCARLETT PINEDO
STEPHANIE RODRIGUEZ
MARCOS RUIZ
Miami-Dade
College
DANIEL SAIZ
University of
Central Florida
SEBASTIAN SALAS
DENISSE SANDOVAL
CHRISTIAN STEINER
ANGIE SUAREZ
ANKEVIA TAYLOR
MARIA VASQUEZ
MCIHELE WU
ANGELIE YGLESIAS
University of
Miami
Miami-Dade
College
University of
Florida
University of
Florida PACE
Florida State
University
Boston
University
Florida International
University
University of
Central Florida
University of
Miami
Florida State
University
University of
Florida
University of
Central Florida
University of
Florida
KARINA MEDINA
Florida International
University
NICOLE PEREZ
University of
Florida
Florida International
University
PAGE 5